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NEW YORK — Imagine if instead of swinging a ashen cane , a visually impaired person could fall apart clothing that senses thing in the environment and relays that information through pinch .
That ’s the dream of a team of scientists and engine driver at a company called Tactile Navigation Tools , which is develop a vest embedded with detector that can detect aim or people nearby and convert the signal into vibrations felt by the body .
A prototype of the Eyeronman device, complete with vibrating actuators, was on display at the New York Festival of Light Nov. 6-8, 2014.
The gadget , known asEyeronman , was on display last weekend ( Nov. 6 - 8) at the New York Festival of Light , an case that featured light art installation in Brooklyn ’s Dumbo neighborhood . [ Bionic Humans : Top 10 Technologies ]
" I want to build a puppet that can actually get [ visually afflicted ] people to walk around crowded environment " without assistance , said Dr. J.R. Rizzo , a rehabilitation doctor at NYU Langone Medical Center and the founder and chief aesculapian adviser of Tactile Navigation Tools .
Eyeronman demo
The researchers tested the sensors on a T-Shirt equipped with LEDs instead of vibrators.
At the event , I obtain to try on a prototype of thevibrating undershirt , which was sprouting wire and electronics and looked a bit like something out of a mad science lab . They also had a T - shirt equip with sensors that would light up LEDs on the front of the vest ( as a stand - in for the vibrating gimmick ) when a person or target moved in front of them . Ultimately , the sensing element and the vacillate gadget will be coalesce in a single piece of clothing , the team said .
I also got to try on a pair of thrill glasses , holler iGlasses , made by the Canadian society AmbuTech . The eyewear contain an ultrasound detector that causes the frames to vibrate when object are observe in the wearer ’s path .
The Eyeronman waistcoat is build on the same concept as the iGlasses , but will provide much more detailed information because it has many more sensors and vibrator , Rizzo tell Live Science .
Rizzo himself is legally blind due to a condition screw as choroideremia , a rare retinal degenerative disease that causesprogressive visual modality release . The machine could be used not only by the blind , but also by constabulary enforcement , delivery workers and others who puzzle out in visually hide environments .
3D detection
The vest will have different type of detector , including lidar , a laser - based organisation used indriverless gondola ; echography , a character of luxuriously - pitched audio used by bat and other animals forecholocation ; and infrared , a type of electromagnetic radiation used by some animals to detect consistency heat from their prey .
When the sensing element detect an physical object , their signals will be converted into vibration in a corresponding part of the vest . For example , when the waistcoat smell a dog in the wearer ’s miserable left field of horizon , vibrator on the gloomy left part of the vest ( as viewed by the wearer ) will trip . The gadget will be a third dimension ( depth ) using the frequency of vibration . In the same example , if the frank were run toward the individual in the vest , the garment would buzz quicker and quicker .
The equipment is designed to be nonrational , but the wit still take to be trained to translate the vibrations , Rizzo said . However , he said he suspects that " as someone gets used to the vibrations and what they intend , it ’s going to become hardwired [ in the brain ] , until the person does n’t have to consciously think about it . "
Tactile Navigation Tools is developing two different versions of the vest . One reading could be worn over a thin shirt in summertime ; the other split up into two parts , with the sensors worn on the outside of a jacket , and the vibrators have on on the inside .
The society aim to have a commercially useable product by the final stage of 2015 or the beginning of 2016 , Rizzo said .
